China's Regulators Tackle Energy-Guzzling Buildings

Published: July 27, 2011

SHANGHAI -- For Jin Liang, a typical Chinese who watches his utility bills carefully, each scorching hot summer day posed a dilemma: Should he switch on his air conditioner, or keep it off to cool the impact on his wallet?

But his dilemma faded away this year after Jin moved into a new apartment. It features magical materials that allow him to comfortably turn off the air conditioner and yet stop sweating.

"This apartment has thermal insulation," Jin explained. "It can stay cool for a few hours after I turn off the air conditioner. So there is no need to keep it on as much as I did before."

As a result, Jin's electricity bill was cut by one-third, good news for the 33-year-old apartment dweller, as well as for the nation. China has picked a fight against a ruthless, energy-guzzling demon -- its millions of buildings.

Currently, China's buildings consume more energy than its three largest heavy industries -- iron, steel and cement -- combined.

And the energy consumption of buildings will only get worse. Every year, nearly 2 billion square meters of new buildings -- roughly equivalent to the total building footprint in Canada -- is being added here. And, while Chinese families now use 80 percent less energy per square meter than North Americans do, this gap is being narrowed by the day as Chinese are getting wealthier and are upgrading their lifestyles with electric appliances.

But this can't go on. "If China can't improve its energy efficiency in buildings, by 2020 its buildings' energy consumption will account for one-fifth of the world's total coal consumption. That is far beyond the country's energy supply ability," said Jin Ruidong, green building project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Such growth is not only clouding China's energy future but also threatening Mother Nature. With more than 70 percent of China's energy coming from coal, a power source that contributes heavily to air pollution and global warming, the nation's bad or good energy practices in buildings will be reflected in the color of the sky and the temperature of the Earth.

Requiring energy efficiency in new urban buildings

To minimize these problems, Chinese policymakers in recent years ordered real estate developers to comply with new codes. While measures vary, from installing insulation to deciding the direction for the house to face, the mission is clear: to enable dwellers to live comfortably while consuming less energy.

Meanwhile, more efforts are exerted to ensure the mission actually gets carried out. Every year, delegations are sent from Beijing to every urban corner of this continent-size nation to run random checks, aiming to hunt down corrupted officials and straying contractors.

As a result, in 2010, more than 95 percent of newly constructed buildings in cities are energy-efficient, according to the Chinese standards, up from nearly 25 percent five years ago, Beijing reported happily in its annual statement. But as always, the devil is in the details.

Since the inspectors from Beijing mostly review documentation, the majority of on-site checks are carried out by local authorities, who are already understaffed and are buried with mountains of other tasks. With too few staff members going through too many buildings, doubts are raised on the quality of their inspections, according to a 2011 report issued by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

And even when local authorities get the time to inspect, Chinese leaders admit, they often lack the ability to judge whether building materials meet the energy efficiency standards.

But what's most worrying, according to experts, is the fact that China's energy efficiency regulators ignore a segment that is home to half of the Chinese population.

Rural areas fly under the regulatory radar

Due to lack of mandatory codes, in rural areas, builders hardly bother to design buildings in an energy-efficient way, says Niu Fengrui. He researches rural regions and real estate issues at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an influential government think tank in Beijing.